Comprehensive Guide To Static Testing: Tools, Challenges, and Benefits

To create high-quality software, it’s essential to thoroughly test applications before releasing them to customers. There are numerous methods available to rigorously analyze the software you’ve developed. Static testing is a valuable software development technique that focuses on preventing defects early on, without executing the code. By performing static tests in the early stages of development, you can avoid potential defects and improve code quality.

What Is Static Testing?

Static testing is a type of testing performed on software without actually running the code. During the testing process, we review and verify the product and its supporting documentation. In contrast, dynamic testing is the testing of software while the code is executing.

In this article, we will introduce static testing techniques, as well as the tools and best practices you can use to perform static testing.

Why Do We Need To Perform Static Testing?

Static testing is a crucial part of the software development process, offering numerous benefits for quality and efficiency.

• If we do a static analysis of the application, we can discover the consequences at an early stage and fix it easily.
• Using a static test will reduce testing costs, development, and time.
• Improved development productivity by catching coding mistakes early on, avoiding unnecessary rework.

Difference Between Static and Dynamic Testing

Static Testing

• The whole code is not executed.
• It can be performed at an early stage of development.
• It takes less time.
• Techniques include reviews, code analysis, and document analysis.
• Example: Verification.

Dynamic Testing

• The whole code will be executed.
• It cannot be performed at an early stage of development.
• It takes more time.
• Techniques include functional testing, performance testing, security testing, and many more.
• Example: Validation.

Why Is Static Testing Required?

Static analysis verifies project features early in development. Testing costs are reduced if defects are detected early. Through static analysis, we can detect inconsistencies in project documents, misunderstanding of rules, or flaws in requirements and design problems. Static evaluation is necessary to improve performance optimization. Coding errors can be found and fixed through static testing in the early stages of development.

Benefits of Static Testing

Static testing provides many benefits to software development projects. Here are some key benefits:

1. Early defect detection: Static testing helps detect bugs, defects, and bugs early in the development process when they produce the best results and are easier to treat.
2. Improve code quality: Static testing helps ensure your code is well-structured, maintainable, and complies with industry-standard coding standards. This improves code quality and reduces the risk of errors and defects in the final product.
3. Reduce cost and time: Early detection of defects can reduce the cost and time of fixing them. This can save significant resources throughout the development cycle.
4. Preventing common problems: Static testing helps prevent common problems such as syntax errors, missing special characters, and product leaks. By addressing these issues during development, the team can prevent problems that may arise later.
5. Improving collaboration: Static evaluation helps identify problems in collaboration, encourages knowledge sharing, and improves communication between teams.

Types of Static Testing

Static Testing can be performed in two ways:

Manual Methods of Static Testing

Inspections

These are the most important documents of the static assessment, for which a dedicated auditor will initiate the process and arrange an appointment for a full inspection. With the necessary information available before and after the conference, peer review will provide a solid overview of the product. Observations and questions will be recorded as problems and will be followed up by the consultant and an appointment will be planned according to the decision. The author is responsible for solving the problems discovered and developed. Auditors are responsible for reviewing documents and checking for deficiencies during the audit. The manager will be responsible for reviewing the process plan and ensuring objectives are met.

Walkthroughs

This is not a formal process; Most meetings are held by the authors of the document to develop consensus on solutions and receive feedback. It is like transferring information to the participants and checking the content of the data. This is useful for advanced data such as custom needs.

Informal Reviews

These reviews are based on peer review and management involvement is not required. There will be no report made after the meeting. We will collect and use instructions from the group if necessary.

Technical Reviews

Technical reviews are formal meetings where a team of subject matter experts evaluates and critiques work products, such as requirements specifications, design documents, or code. The purpose of technical reviews is to identify defects, inconsistencies, or areas for improvement early in the development process.

Audits

Reviewing policies and legal documents to ensure they comply with certain standards or regulations. An independent auditor usually performs the audit.

Automated Methods of Static Testing

There are some most common methods of Automated Static Testing:

Static Analysis

Static analysis is the analysis of code to understand code patterns and coding patterns. This is a type of debugging that examines the source code without running the program. This helps developers ensure that functionality errors, syntax errors, security and performance issues, and code violations are identified. Different tools such as Pycharm, Checkstyle, and SourceMeter can be used to analyze and control the flow of data in the source code of the target programming language. Some examples of these tools are mentioned here.

Code Reviews

Code review is the process of examining and evaluating the source code of a software project from one or more developers. They can be done by hand or with the help of tools. The main purpose of code analysis is to detect and fix defects, errors, and security issues, as well as to improve the readability, security, efficiency, and performance of the code. Code reviews also encourage collaboration, knowledge sharing, and learning among developers.

Static Testing Tools

Depending on the programming language you choose, you can choose from a variety of static analysis tools. These tools range from code review to build tools and vulnerability checkers. Below are some static analysis tools.

CheckStyle

Checkstyle is a development tool used by programmers to check the quality of Java code written. It is highly configurable and supports almost all coding standards in Java. Below you can see some of its features:

• Verify Code Layout
• It can check various features of code

ESLint

ESLint is a development tool used to diagnose and fix problems in JavaScript code. It also supports popular services like AirBnB and Standard. It also allows you to define custom style guides to suit your particular use case. Some of the features include:

• It can parse the code using static test methods
• Automatically fix the issues in code.

SourceMeter

SourceMeter is a static analysis tool. It supports many languages such as C, C++, Java, Python and RPG projects. It also helps identify problems in the source code. Some features are as follows:

• It can do deep static analysis of code
• It can detect issues precisely.

Soot

This Java optimization framework has many analysis and transformation tools. It optimizes code execution speed by checking unnecessary code and improving overall code quality.

• It can provide points-to analysis.

PMD

PMD is source code evaluation. Unused variables, empty variables, production errors, etc. It can detect programming errors such as Supports Java, JavaScript, Salesforce.com Apex and Visualforce, PLSQL, Apache Velocity, XML, XSL

How Is Static Testing Performed?

Static Testing can be performed in many different ways.

• We can carry out the inspection process after every step.
• Make a checklist that all the relevant checks are reviewed successfully.

The Various activities that are used to perform static testing:

• Use case requirement validation: Verifies that all end users and all their associated inputs and results are validated. The more detailed and precise the data used, the more accurate and detailed the test data will be.
• Functional requirements validation: It ensures that the operating rules define everything necessary. It also looks at data processing, interface analysis, and hardware, software, and networking requirements. 
• Architecture Review: Server location, charts, protocol definitions, data balance, data access, testing tools, etc. All business processes such as.

To ensure the quality of the software, you can perform a static test before publishing the software by following the steps below. Art of tools such as Static code analysis, and PMD Check can perform the necessary checks related to static test performance.

Disadvantages of Static Testing

• Can’t find all defects: Static testing mainly focuses on analyzing code and data; This means that it cannot detect all malfunctions or problems that may occur during operation. It does not participate in the execution of the software, so it cannot detect bugs or errors that occur only while the program is running.
• Limited to code: Static analysis focuses on the code itself. It doesn’t test functionality, how components interact, or user interface aspects.
• Time-consuming: Quality testing can be time-consuming, especially for large and complex software. Going through code and data line by line requires effort and attention to detail, which can slow down the entire development process.
• Possibility of false negatives/positives: Unfortunately, static code-checking tools can introduce errors, which can take additional time and effort. False positives occur when code is flagged as problematic or incompatible when there is no problem. False negatives occur when the tool fails to identify a real problem in the code.
• Human reliance: Manual reviews depend on the skills and thoroughness of the reviewers. Errors can be missed due to fatigue or lack of knowledge.

Conclusion

Although static code analysis provides many benefits, its limitations prevent it from being a complete security application. It is important to understand that good code analysis alone is not enough; A broader approach is needed to streamline the testing process. There is no single solution or silver bullet that can ensure application security. Instead, remember that it is best to create a security solution by combining various security tools and tests.